


The Fire Sermon

by Fontainebleau



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood and Gore, Folk Tale Style, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-11
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Killed a man, have you? I recognise the signs – the tremor of your hand as you fill the glass, your gaze distant and unfocused, the bottle clutched like a hand in the dark. Did you watch the light go out in his eyes? Did you see him buried? Did you know his name?As to that, let me tell you a tale.Once, there was a hunter, and his quarry was …well, you’ll see.





	

_Killed a man, have you? I recognise the signs – the tremor of your hand as you fill the glass, your gaze distant and unfocused, the bottle clutched like a hand in the dark. Did you watch the light go out in his eyes? Did you see him buried? Did you know his name?_

_As to that, let me tell you a tale._

_Once, there was a hunter, and his quarry was …well, you’ll see._

The hunt has its own rhythm, insistent and irresistible: the slow steady beat of tracking, the tense and tremor of sighting and stalking, the flare and hammer of chase and catch; with the prey so near, instinct overruled caution. Dusk took him by surprise, streaming purple clouds against a sky of pale rose.

He paused in the dwindling half-light, lifted his head to concentrate, tuning out the skitter of small animals and the rustle of dry leaves, casting for the dead heart of silence that might reveal his quarry. And then he saw it, the tiny ruby spark, treacherous, unlooked-for, guiding him to his journey’s end.

He drifted closer through the smoky twilight one silent step at a time: there was a sweet calm to it, a rightness that soothed his singing nerves and focused his straining senses. The fire shed a circle of brightness against the encroaching dark; the figure had its back to him, squatting close to the burning branches and staring into the flames. He held it in his sights, sharp and clear against the orange glow, and breathed in. 

‘Come to kill me, Goodnight?’ The creature’s voice, low and rich, carried in the stillness to freeze him in place, finger trembling on the trigger. He stood for an endless timestopped moment, waiting for the shot that never came, and the creature asked again, ‘Well?’

‘I understand you sensed me coming,’ said Goodnight, rifle levelled and motionless, ‘but it hardly seems an occasion for names.’

_Kill it now and be done_ , said reason. _Oh, but wait_ , said curiosity. 

 

_And which do you think spoke stronger?_

 

‘Caught me at dark of the moon,’ said the creature. ‘Very wise.’

Goodnight inched closer, skin prickling: it seemed intent on whatever mystery it discerned in the fire’s heart. ‘You’re not the first I’ve seen,’ he said, and that was the truth. It looked like a man, though the trail he’d followed, patient and wary, told otherwise.

‘May I turn around?’ it asked, and he thought he detected something like amusement in its words.

‘Take it slow,’ said Goodnight.

The creature stood up unhurriedly and stretched. Now Goodnight had seen _loup-garou_ before, and had killed all but one he’d seen: in human form they had been crude, powerful but ungainly, muscles too bulky, stretched sinews suggesting overloaded bones. But this creature - a thing in the shape of a man, dressed in a worn shirt and black pants – oh, it was mesmerising, lithe and graceful, muscles shifting under its ragged shirt, black hair falling to its shoulders. 

 

_Did the flames from the fire run under his skin? Did he shiver? That’s for you to decide._

 

It turned to face him and he tightened his grip on the stock. The fine planes of its face lay half in shadow, but its eyes shone very bright. ‘Well and good,’ it said. ‘We both know what you’ve come to do.’ One hand reached to draw aside the collar of its shirt and lay bare its chest. ‘Here. Through the heart.’

Goodnight’s finger tensed on the trigger and the night held its breath. He knew all too well what he was looking at: jaws to crush bone, teeth to rend and rip, claws to tear and flay; a creature that fed with greedy appetite, head in the entrails, tearing out the viscera, muzzle dripping blood. Beautiful or no, this was a monster, and the more dangerous for all it was so handsome. But the creature never took its bright eyes from his, and eventually the rifle sagged in his hands, coming to rest in the grit at his feet.

‘Or,’ said the _loup_ , ‘perhaps we could talk?’ 

The sounds of the night seemed to start up again, and the _loup_ gestured to the other side of the fire. ‘Join me.’ Goodnight felt a surge of unreality, as though he were stepping into the pages of a fable, his prey turned civilised host, inviting him to parley like two princes in the Arabian Nights. And edging round the fire, finding a treetrunk laid out for him to sit, he considered that perhaps his own part in the story might already have been written.

He laid down his rifle, commenting, ‘Pistol’s loaded with silver too,’ but the _loup_ laughed, low and rumbling.

‘I’ve already offered you the chance. All I want to do is share my dinner and a little conversation; you can kill me afterwards.’

Goodnight’s gaze fell on the chunk of meat sizzling over the flames and his thought clearly crossed his face, because the _loup_ commented, ‘Deer.’ It raised its chin, challenging. ‘Taste it if you don’t believe me.’

It squatted back down. ‘Why are you hunting me?’

Goodnight shrugged. ‘I know the sign of _loup-garou_ when I see it. Was on the trail of a bank robber, tracked him to Carson City, then it went cold on me. Stayed in town a few days to turn over some stones, and began to hear stories I recognised, livestock killed, people going missing. One got into the papers, a woman – they found her out in the woods.’

‘Stayed too long in one place,’ said the _loup_. ‘But tell me, why do you care? Silver bullets and all: not to be impolite, but even at moon’s dark hunting me’s a dangerous activity.’

Goodnight looked across the fire and saw twin sparks reflected in its eyes. ‘You’re a monster. You kill people.’ 

‘That I do,’ said the _loup_ easily. ‘When I’m hungry. Or for fun, sometimes. The chase, the kill. Sometimes I kill in man-shape too. But then I’m hardly alone in that, am I, Goodnight Robicheaux?’ Its dark eyes seemed to look right inside Goodnight. ‘If killing humans is at issue, your reputation precedes you.’

Goodnight felt his chest constrict. ‘That was war,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘it’s different.’

‘If you say so. We’re not here to quarrel,’ said the _loup_. ‘Eat.’

‘Can’t say I’m entirely sure what we are here to do,’ said Goodnight, but nevertheless he took the roasted meat from the spit, carved off a little and began to eat. 

 

_Would you have known better? I think you would._

 

‘I’d like to understand why you want me dead: that’s not so unreasonable.’

Goodnight stared at it flatly. ‘You kill innocent people. You slaughter indiscriminately, leave a trail of bodies. You hide in plain sight. No one’s safe.’

The _loup_ put its head on one side. ‘So you’re making the world safer for humankind? Doing some good to weigh in the scales in the hope of salvation?’

‘I’m not looking to be judged by your kind,’ said Goodnight shortly.

‘You’re no stranger to killing, we’ve established that. Tell me about the last man you killed.’

‘Self-defence,’ said Goodnight. ‘Pair of them jumped me just outside Carson City, aiming to rob me. Got a silver slug in the chest, which I had to dig out of him. His fault: they’re no better than jackals.’

‘Before that?’

‘Fellow I was trying to take in. Could have done it calm and easy, faced the law, but he went for his gun.’

‘And before him?’ 

Goodnight frowned. ‘Indian. That one I ain’t so proud of. Wasn’t being as attentive as I should, blundered across their burial ground when they were setting out their friend.’

‘Before that?’ 

Goodnight scowled. ‘I see where this is trying to go. Don’t think it equates to your killing. I had justification.’

‘Long word,’ said the _loup_. 

‘Don’t know why I’m trying to argue ethics with an animal.’

The _loup_ ’s eyes flashed and Goodnight felt oddly guilty. ‘Once,’ it said, so quietly that Goodnight had to strain to hear, ‘I was a man, like you. Or perhaps not like you.’

‘Long way from home, then,’ said Goodnight.

The _loup_ got up and came round to his side of the fire; Goodnight tensed and reached for his pistol, but it waved a hand dismissively. ‘If I wanted you dead, you’d have been dead long since.’ It paused. ‘No slight implied.’

‘If you say so,’ said Goodnight. This was the closest he’d got to it, and he saw that animal or no, its shape was very handsome: worn and holed though its clothes might be, the shift and play of firelight turned its skin to the bronze of an ancient statue.

The _loup_ lowered itself onto the other end of the treetrunk. ‘The man I was came here to work: that he did it at the price of two months in a stinking ship and two years of bonded labour tells you how it was for him before. And he worked. On your railroad, as a servant. And eventually he got to be free.’

Goodnight waited to see if it intended to continue, but there was only the crackle of the flames. ‘What happened to him?’ he asked.

‘He changed.’ It watched him unsparingly.

Goodnight reached into his coat, catching the flinch of reaction from the corner of his eye. ‘I’ve eaten your meat: seems only right I offer you some of my whisky.’ He held out his flask. The loup took it, examined the fleur-de-lys, then raised it to its mouth. It drank and handed it back again, fine bones of hand and forearm shadowed in the firelight, nails neat and square.

‘Look, you got a name?’ asked Goodnight. ‘I was taught my manners, and though there ain’t much guidance on etiquette for sitting across a fire from a _loup-garou_ , seems I should call you something.’

It considered, head on one side again. ‘Billy,’ it said at length, ‘I could go by Billy.’

‘Fine name,’ said Goodnight. ‘And you know mine.’

‘It’s unusual,’ said the _loup_ – Billy.

‘Oh, it’s a family name – we married into the Goodnights of Illinois a while back, and it’s come down the line since. It’s not my given name, but I’ve gone by it since I was a boy. Times it seemed to have destiny in it, and more of a curse than a blessing, but it’s too much part of me to change.’

‘And what is your given name?’ asked the _loup_.

‘El -’ Goodnight raised his head to stare at it hard.

‘Never mind,’ said Billy with a satisfied smile, ‘ _Goodnight_ will do for me.’

Goodnight offered his flask again. ‘All this,’ he said, ‘the conversation, the food, the fire: what do you want from me? Is this the point where you swear to forego human flesh, and I promise not to hunt you?’

‘No,’ said the _loup_ thoughtfully, ‘and no. But I could make a bargain with you.’

‘Your kind don’t bargain,’ said Goodnight.

‘Perhaps I feel my position is weak.’ It held the flask out again, but this time when Goodnight closed his fingers on it the _loup_ kept hold; he tried to pull it from its grasp, but he might as well have heaved at a mountain. 

The _loup_ let go. ‘Keep me company for a while,’ it said, ‘and I’ll ask you three questions. When you’ve answered them, if you still want to kill me, you can. I’ll bare my chest for you myself.’

‘Three questions,’ said Goodnight.

‘I ask, you answer. Then you decide.’ It gazed at him coolly, and the contrast between its regal poise and tattered clothes pierced him in the heart. And truth to tell, perhaps after hearing _keep me company for a while_ he might have been less wary than he should.

‘Agreed,’ he said.

The _loup_ spat into its hand and held it out; Goodnight did the same. He expected its touch to be feverishly hot, but its grip was hard and warm. ‘And sealed.’ 

 

_And somewhere out beyond the light’s reach came perhaps the faintest click and rattle, as though someone had cast a pair of dice. Or stirred a heap of bones._

 

‘Then lie down,’ said Billy, ‘sleep. There’s nothing out here to be afraid of.’ And it was Goodnight’s turn to laugh at the idea of lying down and sleeping in the company of a live _loup-garou_.

‘You’ll protect me, will you?’

Billy seemed hurt. ‘We’ve shared meat and drink, and struck hands on a bargain: to kill you as you sleep would be uncouth.’

‘That meant to reassure me?’ asked Goodnight.

The _loup_ shrugged his shoulders and lay down. ‘As you will.’ He stretched out on his side, head on one arm, and appeared to drift into sleep; eventually Goodnight lay down too, his back to the treetrunk, letting the warmth from the cooling embers lull him also into sleep.

When he woke up the first pale rays of the sun were scattering over the plain and the _loup_ was gone, the ashes of the fire kicked and scattered. _Well, I didn’t kill it, and it didn’t tear my throat out in the night. And I shared an evening’s talk with a_ loup-garou _, that’s a tale to tell_. Goodnight got up, eased the stiffness from his muscles, picked up his empty flask. In the new light of day the figure of firelit bronze seemed dreamlike and unreal. And maybe the creature had got its way: certainly he had no stomach to pursue it further. Unbuttoning his fly, he went to the nearest tree to relieve himself, and almost jumped out of his skin when a voice made out of dark velvet said from behind him, ‘We need to move on.’

He braced one hand against the tree to calm his thumping heart and finished his task before he asked, ‘Move on where?’

‘You’ll see. Fetch your horse.’

 

The _loup_ took them to a place where water ran clear and shallow over a bed of stones, pooling under trees which dappled soft grass with shade. Fish darted below the surface and the water’s edge showed tracks of deer and fox. A high rocky wall rising beyond offered shelter, and there was only the gentlest of breezes to set the leaves rustling.

 

_How did they get there? Well now, that’s a question. You wouldn’t find it on your own; it’s more a case of_ here _and_ there _… easier to show than to tell, I think._

 

Goodnight slithered from his horse to let her drink, reins trailing, and dipped his own hands into the water to cool his face. It seemed a place entirely of nature, untouched by humankind, but looking about him he saw the ring of an old fire with a black kettle suspended over it, and a roll of blankets. The _loup_ saw his glance. ‘What were you expecting, a cave full of split bones?’

Goodnight bit back the _yes_ that danced on his tongue and said, ‘ _Expect_ is not a word I’d use.’

‘Be welcome,’ said Billy formally, and Goodnight bowed his head in polite acknowledgement before he led his horse away to unsaddle her and let her graze.

He returned to a sound of splashing in the creek and caught just a glimpse of bare golden skin and streaming dark hair before he turned away, stiff and awkward. But the _loup_ emerged naked, shaking the water from his skin, unabashed. ‘Wash,’ he said, ‘there’s no one near: I’d know.’ And Goodnight suddenly felt himself absurdly overdressed in coat and waistcoat, stock and boots; he cast his clothes aside to bathe in the pool, then came out clean and refreshed to lie under the trees barefoot in shirt and pants.

‘All this green in the desert, it reminds me of home,’ he said, ‘just a little.’

‘Tell me,’ said the _loup_ , so Goodnight told him about the emerald swamps and the sluggish water, the damp heat and the trailing moss, the turtles that dived and snapped, the alligators, while the _loup_ lay and watched him with fiery eyes. ‘And the _loup-garou_. You were there too.’

The _loup_ turned his head. ‘Seen many like me?’

‘No,’ said Goodnight truthfully. ‘I’ve seen a few _loup-garou_ , some closer than I preferred, but none of them was like you.’ He was near enough for Goodnight to see the rise and fall of his chest, the twitch of muscle under skin gilded by the sun.

Now for a hunter to fail to kill a _loup-garou_ at the chance was foolish, and to accept its invitation was beyond foolish, but perhaps in truth Goodnight did not yet believe the place he found himself; perhaps he expected still to wake up at dawn by the cold ashes out on the trail somewhere, and laugh at himself for his extravagant imagination. But the _loup_ certainly seemed to find nothing unusual in his presence: it treated him with careful courtesy, listened with attention to his words, and to be sure, it was as handsome by day as it had been by night, dark and fine-featured, moving with heedless grace around its domain. And so Goodnight took each moment for its own, without examining the _how_ or the _why_ , and the day was long and sunny, the evening lazy and companionable, meat roasted over the fire, the flask passed from hand to hand, and the talk flowed as easily as the cool water rippling in the creek. 

Fear was far from his mind as he lay down to sleep; indeed, he felt something akin to comfort or protection as the _loup_ murmured its _goodnight_. He remembered no dreams, yet as he stirred the flames under the kettle to make his breakfast the _loup_ surveyed him thoughtfully. Accepting the tin cup of coffee which Goodnight offered, he remarked, ‘You sleep uneasily.’

‘You watched me?’ Goodnight asked, uncomfortable under its appraising gaze.

‘I don’t need to see,’ said the _loup_. ‘I hear you move and cry out in your dreams. I scent your panic; I sense your despair.’

Goodnight left him unanswered for a long time, but the _loup_ said no more, just looked at him, and eventually he said, ‘The past has its claws in me, and it doesn’t let go. Things I saw I can’t unsee, deeds I can’t undo. I learned what men are capable of, what I was capable of.’

‘Let the past be past,’ said the _loup_ , ‘live in the now,’ its gesture encompassing the sun, the grass, the water. ‘Embrace it.’

‘Wish it were that easy,’ said Goodnight.

‘Do you?’ asked the _loup_. It raised its head to where a sliver of moon floated high in the early morning sky, its inner disc shining with a faint light.

‘Old moon in the new moon’s arms,’ observed Goodnight. The _loup_ gazed upwards and it seemed that the tiniest shiver ran through it. 

 

That night he woke to the inevitability of a weight on his chest. Not fur and teeth and yellow eyes, but a man speaking warm against his ear, pressing a gun into his right hand. ‘Take it. I don’t want you defenceless,’ and his hand closed on the grip of his own pistol.

‘Come to tear my throat out?’ he husked. The man wasn’t heavy but he was powerful, and as Goodnight heaved up against him, testing, he discovered that he was naked.

‘Something like that,’ murmured the _loup_ , and black hair tickled his face as he bit oh so gently down Goodnight’s neck. 

 

_Too strong for you? Too close to the bone? Oh, don’t turn away. Story’s only just begun._

 

Goodnight’s hand slid across his back, feeling the solid muscles under the skin: his fingers found out the thin lines of parallel scars on his thigh, a knotted ridge of scar on his side. The loup tore his shirt open impatiently and his palm fell like a burning brand on Goodnight’s chest. ‘Do you want this?’ he asked, and Goodnight realised he’d already dropped the gun to coil his fingers in that silky hair, to open up that hot red mouth with his own. He let his desire came raging to life and course through his body, sparking to life under his skin; he felt his clothes thick and stifling, blinding his senses, and rolled over, stripping them off, desperate to feel, to touch, to press every inch of him to the marvellous nakedness beneath him. They crashed together coppery and fierce, without hesitation, without tenderness, without thought, teeth raking and nails clawing, until the furnace heat cracked and shattered him into a fountain of sparks. 

Afterwards as his heart slowed, the _loup_ draped over him heavy and relaxed, teeth nipping softly under his ear, he asked, ‘How did you know?’ and Billy said, ‘I could taste it, pouring off you like smoke.’ 

In the light of morning he lay there, Billy asleep beside him, or seeming to be, and his closeness and the ache of his body made sure it was more than a dream born of want and fever. He felt as if he’d stepped through a door: no _wrong_ or _sinful_ or _depraved_ ; this was hot and simple, taking fear and shame and searing them away until what was left was a core of blind lust and pleasure. There was no gentleness in it, no caresses or sighs, only strength barely restrained, and he met it shock for shock; it found out something in him, consuming and raw, and drew it out, quick and relentless.

He looked to his side and saw Billy’s eyes open, depthless dark. He reached to touch his collarbone, then hesitated to close the space between them. The _loup_ stared into his eyes. ‘That was the first question.’

Anger flared, that he should be so easily fooled, then turned as quickly to chagrin. _Well and good: was I ever going to give a different answer?_

 

_Well, was he?_

 

It was an easy life and a lazy one, hunting, cooking, bathing, resting under the shifting green shadows at noon, talking over the fire, and the days slipped by like beads on a string. His coat and hat lay untouched, his horse grazed and rolled and grew sleek, his watch ran down and stopped. But everything that lives dances to the rhythm of the moon: Goodnight had caught his wolf at full dark, as a good hunter should, and with each night that passed, nights of fire, of heady raking couplings and leaping sparks, the fingernail moon grew larger and the inevitable came closer. 

He feared what he would see: Billy was so beautiful, each part of him fine-drawn, the whole well-proportioned and balanced, moving with easy authority. The lycanthropes he’d seen in lupine form had been crude half-made things, bodies twisted into bestial form, fur patched and sparse; how cruel would it be to see him misshapen and monstrous, his own foolishness and unreason made manifest in flesh?

All too soon, as the sun was setting in a haze of scarlet, Billy came up behind him: was it his imagination, or did a new rank scent coil around him, faint but powerful? ‘Wait for me,’ he said, close in his ear, and pressed against his back for a breath or two, then Goodnight heard light footsteps fade behind him. He sat, added branches to the fire and stared into it, at the ash flaking from the wood as it burned, at the flames leaping and fading on the air in ragged tongues, at matter transforming and transmuted, in its glowing heart. 

A low growl brought him to his feet and he stood, blinking away the burning afterimage, to see the creature outlined on top of the bluff. It shook its head and stood inviting his gaze, and Goodnight looked, looked and his heart burned like the branch in the fire. This was a wolf, no more, no less, as handsome and well-proportioned in this form as in human guise. Large, larger than any wild wolf, powerful and sleek, and black, midnight black, with fur so thick that Goodnight longed to bury his hands and face in it, and still those bright, bright eyes. The wolf held Goodnight’s gaze, red tongue lolling, then turned and disappeared silently over the rise. And Goodnight sat down, shaken to the core, and held out his hands to the blaze where black wolf and dark man shimmered together among the phantoms at the fire’s heart. 

He was still gone when the moon was high and Goodnight saw the embers flicker out as he lay down in the soft grass to sleep, and gone later too when he stirred and saw the moon low and bloody among the trees; but when he woke at dawn there was a dark form stretched beside him, shielding him from the thin morning breeze.

 

_You think him mad, weak, beguiled, and perhaps he was all of those. But if you had seen it as he did, such beauty, such power, those fiery eyes… And still, he had two more questions to answer._

 

Another morning as he knelt alone to dip his head and hands into the water Goodnight caught a ripple of movement among the trees, the flicker of brown hide, the wary twitch of ears and nervous turn of head. He reached for his rifle and moved as noiselessly as human feet can, circling downwind, stalking, waiting with a predator’s patience among the trees. A deer picked into the clearing directly in front of him, nostrils scenting, and he sighted, breathed in, squeezed the trigger as gentle as a kiss. The shot cracked and the deer fell: he heard the rest flee, crashing away through the trees. ‘Well hunted,’ said Billy; Goodnight hadn’t even known he was there.

‘I’m sure you could have done as well.’

As he began to butcher the deer Billy squatted nearby, tracing a finger over the spots and whorls of its hide. ‘This deer and no other. Do you ask why?’

‘No,’ said Goodnight, ‘it’s just a deer.’

‘Spoken like a human,’ said Billy. 

 

‘Second question,’ announced Billy across the fire that night, and Goodnight’s stomach lurched. ‘You admit that you kill, as I do.’

‘Is that the question?’ asked Goodnight.

Billy stood up and walked around the fire towards him, slow and menacing, not stopping until Goodnight had to tilt his head to see his face. The look in his eye and the scent of him, red and metallic, made Goodnight’s heart pound. ‘I ask, you answer,’ he said, and placed two fingers on his neck: they could both feel his pulse ticking.

At length he said, ‘You kill to eat, yet you condemn me for doing the same.’

‘Humans are not deer,’ said Goodnight.

‘True,’ said Billy, ‘as far as that goes. Yet you kill your own too. Tell me, what makes one death right and another wrong?’

‘Justice,’ said Goodnight.

Billy sat down again. ‘Easy to say: the good deserve to live, the bad to die. When I was a man I killed to be free. Did I deserve to die? If a slave has a bad master and kills to be free, what then? What if a man kills to protect one he loves? What if the man he kills is cruel, greedy, wicked? Do you still hunt him down?’

‘No,’ said Goodnight, dragging truth out from himself, ‘not always.’

‘Well and good. You’ve killed to protect yourself. You’ve killed men because they wore the wrong colour coat. You’ve killed because you were told to. My question: does why you kill matter?’

This one seemed easy to answer. ‘Yes,’ said Goodnight, ‘yes, it does.’

‘You’re wrong,’ said Billy. ‘I was human before, but I was still a wolf. I killed to be free. I killed for money. I killed men because they were vain and stupid, and I didn’t care. At least now I kill because I want to. Leaving a trail of corpses? I always did that, and so do you.’

 

_I see you fidget and look away. Am I boring you? My apologies: it’s just a tale to pass the time, and perhaps so much conversation is dull. Let me continue; I assure you it becomes more diverting._

 

More days passed, uncounted, unmeasured, until one afternoon, with no warning, Billy rolled over on the grass and said, ‘Tomorrow, we go to town.’

For a moment it seemed to Goodnight as though he’d spoken in a foreign tongue, and he stared, perplexed: ‘What for?’

‘What civilisation has to offer,’ said Billy, amused. ‘Liquor, entertainment.’ His smile was guileless. ‘Food.’

It was true, Goodnight had drained the last of his whisky, brewed his last coffee, baked his last flour, but still, the thought of human society, mundane and workaday, had drifted far from his mind.

‘We walk two worlds, my kind,’ said Billy, ‘and you’ve seen mine; now we’ll see yours.’

‘If you want,’ said Goodnight, but unease crept and coiled in his gut. 

When they set out Billy had conjured a fine leather vest from some unseen cache and hidden his long hair under a black hat; he looked – not respectable, nor even unremarkable, but somehow tamed, a tiny teasing smile playing on his lips at Goodnight’s scrutiny. His unease had taken shape, hardening to guilt: he had come to kill a _loup-garou_ , hunting it down in the name of protection, of revenge, and yet now here he was riding back into town at its side, bound in bargain, its willing companion; shame warred with disbelief, and a queasy wonder that dream and reality could conjoin so in the bright sunlight. 

It was a fine day, the sky cloudless blue, larks singing, and from the ridge where they looked down the town resembled a child’s toy of tiny wooden houses and tinier people. It seemed to Goodnight a hundred years since he had set foot among his own kind, and the contrast between the prosaic reality of storefronts, barrels and carts and his sidelong glances at the creature of nightmare walking beside him in the shape of a man made reality waver before his eyes like a heat haze. 

 

_Not really a hundred years: that’s a different tale. Here, let me fill your glass, and mine, while I continue._

 

Outside the dry goods store Billy wrinkled his nose and let Goodnight go in alone to replenish his supplies and exchange halting words with the owner; when he came out with his packages he found Billy lounging at ease against the wall, tipping his hat to passers-by. _You hide in plain sight_ , he’d said. Did his gaze linger on them a little speculatively? _No one’s safe_ , he’d said.

‘Now,’ said Billy, shifting at once from relaxed stillness to brisk activity, ‘entertainment,’ and Goodnight followed obediently as he loped up the steps of the saloon. When the bartender cast an eye askance at Billy Goodnight almost laughed, that suspicion should be so misplaced, but he stepped up, the word ‘friend’ coming to his lips without thought, and soon they were established with drink and food, let themselves be drawn into a game of cards. And perhaps Billy wove his own kind of glamour: the cards fell fortunate under Goodnight’s fingers, the upturned face always quick to turn his luck, the liquor was mellow and rich, his jokes and tales brought ready laughs and good humour as coins changed hands. Goodnight was all warmth and charm, turning to his silent companion, ‘Ain’t that so, Billy? Wouldn’t you say?’, and when Billy stood up and slipped away with a quiet, ‘Excuse me a while,’ he smiled and let him go.

And gradually, without him, the glamour drained away. The whisky that had been smooth now went down harsh and sour, the cards shimmered before his eyes, a three that he would swear had been an eight, a black king suddenly red between one blink and the next; there seemed something wrong with the world, or with him, as though the _loup_ was the only truly living creature in the town, its residue left burning on the air as its absence revealed the room around him as no more than a painted backdrop and the patrons of the saloon as actors feigning their parts.

Time stretched, slowed: _a while_ , he’d said. Where? And why? A scuffle brought Goodnight’s head snapping up, a shouted curse raised him to his feet; the flicker of bodies outside the window had him striding to the door.

It was beyond reason, beyond control, pure rage and reflex, no time to reckon or question: Billy down in the dust, struggling with a man, and another with a gun already drawn, tracking the rolling figure. He heard himself shout; he saw himself break into a run, pistol in his hand and his finger on the trigger. The bullet’s crack froze them into a tableau, Billy and his attacker clutching each other, dust in their hair, the dying man in front of him swaying on his feet, time suspending itself until his grip loosened as his life leaked away and his gun slipped from his fingers to land spinning on the ground. Then the blood ran and the crowd gathered, the cry went up, and at the centre stood Goodnight, trapped, as securely as he was trapped that first night, by his own weak traitorous heart. 

He expected the crowd, the sheriff with his silver star glinting in the sun, the questions, the eager pronouncements and gestures of the bystanders; he expected a weight of iron on his wrists to match the weight in his heart. He expected judgement, condemnation: his soul cried out for it. Not to stand in the sun and hear the decision so lightly made: a fair quarrel, provocation, protection; not to see them turn away, attention already elsewhere: no culpability, no case. Protest sprang to his lips: _I am to blame, I killed him for love, for lust, for a monster_ , but he spoke none of it. 

He stood above the man he had shot, blood soaking into the thirsty ground, as the sheriff strode away and the crowd dissolved, leaving him alone. A voice behind him said, ‘Life is cheap.’ 

Goodnight stared in front of him, throat choked, weak with hate. ‘You could have broken his arm. You could have broken his neck. There was no need. You wanted this.’

‘Instinct,’ murmured the _loup_ , and he leaned over and kissed his cheek.

Goodnight stood and waited for the world to end: for reaction, for accusation, for punishment, but the life of the town flowed on around them, him, the _loup_ and the dead man, as though they were statues, stones, ghosts. And in the end, ‘No more,’ said Goodnight, and he turned his back and walked away.

 

_Ah, so easy to be wise after the event. Poor Goodnight. Perhaps I should have warned you at the outset, it’s a sad story. At least in parts._

 

Where he stood was too far away to hear the regular thud of earth on coffin; if the diggers saw him watching from the shadow of the trees they showed no interest. Maybe it was expected, the killer the only one to attend: certainly there was no preacher, no grieving wife, no brother or friend, just two bored men filling a hastily-dug grave. When they were gone he stood before the freshly-turned earth, hat in hand, and read the name on the cross. Jeremiah Moore. _I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t know a thing about him. I didn’t ask if he was a good man or bad, how he lived his life, if he had family he loved. I saw Billy and I saw the gun and I killed him. I killed a man for a werewolf._

Billy’s ‘ _Before that?_ ’ echoed in his mind and he saw clear and stark the trail of graves that marked his passage across the land: the graves at Antietam, at Ox Hill, graves unmarked, graves hasty and shallow, or just clean bones picked by the vultures. The dead outnumber the living countless times. Graves surrounded him: he stood in a city of the sleeping dead, and their deaths fluttered around him like moths. _Died of gangrene. Died of fever. Shot over a game of cards. Drowned. Kicked by a horse. Stabbed in a fight._ He could find no reason to it, no explanation: wise or foolish, noble or venal, kind or cruel, their life’s ends were arbitrary, meaningless. _I am guilty_ , he wanted to say, _I killed for no good reason, folly and desire blinded me_ ; he longed to pour out his remorse and anguish, but there was none to receive it, just the harsh caw of a crow in the trees. 

The sun went down as a ball of crimson and he made his way back to the main street, passing under the shadow of the church and pausing to look up at the belltower, its cross outlined against the evening sky. There was no forgiveness for him here either, not long since. Goodnight knew he should expect to go to Hell when he died, but at heart his secret hope was that afterwards there would be nothing, just dissolution and black oblivion.

In the boarding house that night he staggered to his narrow bed in a shared room trusting that he’d drunk enough to send him plunging into fathomless sleep, but long past midnight a half-heard sound hauled him up from the depths and jerked him to sudden awareness. The snores and restless shifts of the strangers around him in the stifling dark he recognised, but none was the note that lingered just beyond his hearing. Then it came again, faint but clear over the desert, the lonely howl of a wolf. As it died he listened for it, ached for it, sure that it would come again, but he listened in vain until the first faint light leaked in through the window, reflected in his open eyes.

When the sun was up Goodnight followed the road to where the buildings stopped, and sat his horse, considering. Trails led east and south: where did he want to go? As he sat irresolute a farmer on a creaking cart approached and stopped beside him. ‘Need directions, friend?’

‘East, I think,’ said Goodnight.

‘Towards Gabriel’s Crossing? Well, if you’re headed that way, take care,’ said his new friend. ‘There’s talk of wolves near town, taking livestock; be watchful if you’re on your own. Might be we’ll take a party to hunt them down, for safety’s sake.’

‘Maybe south, then,’ said Goodnight, ‘and thanks.’

As the cart creaked away he turned his horse’s head and urged her along the trail; he rode through the day seeing nothing, hearing nothing, through dry desert, rattling bushes, red dust and empty rock. The sun reached its zenith, bright and hot, banishing shadows, but a wan half moon stood in the sky with it, sovereign of day and night alike. When dusk began to fall, the sky turning to salmon and then to dusky mauve, Goodnight didn’t pause, not until he saw the spark of the fire ahead, impossible, inevitable, drawing him like a lodestone. 

 

_We think we choose our own path, but all roads weave together; go where you may, there’s only one end to the journey. Present company excepted, of course: your fate’s your own, I’m sure._

 

This time it wasn’t a man beside the fire but a black wolf, and he sat down opposite it without hesitation or thought. ‘They’re coming to hunt you. Don’t think they have an idea what you are, but they don’t like it. Best be moving on.’ The wolf stood up, shook itself, and nosed at something on the ground; Goodnight saw that it was a rabbit. The wolf lay back down, regarding him, and once again Goodnight felt opened up, scoured by its unrelenting gaze. ‘You were right,’ he said after a while, ‘no one cared. I killed him, and I stood alone at his grave, and no one cared.’ The wolf yawned with a snap, wide and sharp-toothed. ‘And still,’ said Goodnight softly, ‘I owe you one more answer’. He began to skin the rabbit. The wolf laid its head on its paws and sighed, and the fire crackled and spat.

He knew that nightmare waited, patient and implacable, just beyond the fire’s light, and when he closed his eyes its wings engulfed him, sent him spinning into a timeless space where he saw the consequences, felt the guilt, even as his countless selves, older and younger, pulled the trigger and exulted. He was surrounded by dead: he saw the bodies ripped and torn, and he was so hungry, so afraid, the shrieking clouds of crows flapping up to reveal the secret he dreaded. A voice spoke his name, ‘Goodnight; Goodnight, come back,’ but when he opened his eyes the dream was still going on, it had to be, because he felt the brush of silky black fur on face and hands and chest, impossibly soft, and he groaned and put his arms around a wolf which licked him with a smooth hot tongue. The dream faded, flaking into rags like ash, but the wolf was still there, letting him clutch at it with fistfuls of fur, letting him bury his face in its ruff, its scent surrounding him, strong and musky and sharp. It let him shiver close for comfort, rolled over, weighty and relaxed, to anchor him, and Goodnight made its fur into the starless night as he rested his burning eyes against it.

 

The cold moon waned and waxed and the spinning earth turned its face to follow; what thing that lives can resist its invitation to dance? The _loup_ went hunting, and at evening it returned. The moon’s full disc cast a searching light, silvering the outlines of branches and rocks, creating knife-edged shadows. One moment Goodnight was alone by the creek, back against a tree, watching the moon swim and splinter in its surface: the next a black shape was crouching in the shallows, lapping the water, then padding closer to settle beside him. Its animal scent was rank and earthy, this time mingled with the furry tang of iron and the faint reek of raw flesh. The wolf laid its head on its paws, eyes half-closed, and in the pale light Goodnight saw the streaks of matted red in its fur, the stains on its jaws and the faint dark bleed around its front paws where it had paddled in the creek. His stomach clenched.

A deer. Surely. _The chase_ , said Billy’s voice in his head. A bullock, fat and tempting. _The kill_. A sheep. The wolf looked at him with one gleaming eye, yawned and settled to sleep. 

He knew. He knew, and he scrabbled to his feet, unwilling to see, unable to stay still, racked with nausea. Who was it? A woman, walking home at dusk? A lone traveller? A child? Had they seen it as it stalked them? Had they run? Had they screamed? Or had the wolf taken them silent and unseen, like a bullet singing through the air out of nowhere, burying itself clean in chest or back without the chance to say a prayer? The vision left him sick and trembling. _I came to kill it and I killed for it. I caused this _.__

‘As I said,’ came the dark brown voice behind him, ‘I like to get up close.’

He turned around and Billy was back, shirtless. His face, hands and torso were streaked with blood, his hair matted brown in places. Goodnight’s question died in his throat, and he stared at him, wordless, until eventually he said, ‘I killed a farmhand. He was out looking to his stock. I spilled his blood and tasted him; he was like russet apples and the green woods in spring.’ Goodnight shuddered.

‘I kill to eat, not to leave corpses for the crows,’ said the _loup_. ‘I set my teeth in their throat, and I see the terror in their eyes. It’s the right way, not yours, looking down the barrel of a gun, keeping your hands clean.’

‘It’s my fault,’ said Goodnight thickly. ‘I should have killed you, and instead I let it go on happening.’

‘So seek absolution,’ sneered the _loup_ , ‘if you think it’s to be found. Why are you here with me?’

 

Billy made a fire and Goodnight sat next to the flames and wrapped his arms around himself, watching as he worked at his fingernails with a knife. Something he couldn’t name built in him and eventually he said, ‘Creek’s there.’

Billy didn’t smile. ‘Want me to wash my sins away before I come to your bed?’

‘It’s human blood,’ hissed Goodnight. And the _loup_ was on him, legs pinning his hips, one hand on his chest; he’d forgotten the iron strength of those arms.

‘So it is, beloved. Taste.’ A hand slapped across his mouth and as Goodnight struggled against its grip the feel of the blood, sticky and clinging, made his skin crawl. Matted hair trailed over his cheek as the _loup_ raked its other hand across his flesh. ‘Your fault? Your kill? Then own it. Take what’s yours.’

A fire of rage lit within him, at the _loup_ , at himself, at the meaninglessness of it all, the emptiness of _justice_ and _reason_ , the hopeless search for forgiveness, and like a jar in a furnace he broke apart, not surrender but shatter, breaking in two to let something else out. He opened his mouth and licked the palm of Billy’s hand, tasting blood and dirt, hungry for it, wound his arms around him to grip him close, panting as sweat and gore and musk smeared over his body, and Billy said through bared teeth, ‘We’re all red under the skin.’ 

 

_Ah now, wait. Just a little longer_.

 

‘Give me the bullets,’ said Billy, and Goodnight emptied his guns, poured them shining into his hands. Billy pulled back his arm and sent them scattering like stars into the dark. ‘Time for the third question,’ he said. His arms cradled Goodnight as gentle as a mother: the ends of his hair tickled his cheek as he leant over to brush the lightest of kisses to his lips.

‘Yes,’ said Goodnight simply. ‘Whatever it is. Yes, I love you. Yes, I’m yours.’ He tilted his head back to bare his throat. ‘Yes, take what you want.’

And there was the wolf back, teeth sharp and white, smile unforgiving. ‘What makes you think it was any of those?’ It rolled him over in a trice, held him down, arms like iron. And he felt the beginning of _shift_ and _flex_ under his hands. 

‘Do it,’ said Goodnight, eyes squeezed closed. ‘End it.’ And the _loup_ threw its head back and laughed, long and rich. His voice was a gravelly growl. ‘Beloved.’ The night spun around him, hot and bloody and delirious, and when the wolf’s jaws closed in his throat he bucked and shouted in ecstasy. 

\--

 

\--

 

\--

The pale wolf was a hair taller than the black, long-legged and rangy, its coat a smoky beige with a heavy ruff, its eyes ice-pale. They sat together atop the bluff, fur shining faintly in the moonlight, then first one and then the other raised his head to howl. Their voices wove and mingled, gathering force and echoing across the waiting land, claiming the night as their domain. Then Goodnight shook himself and bounded away down the bluff, fearsome and majestic, Billy a fleet black shadow at his side. 

 

_There. Story’s done. Why so pale, beloved? Are you cold?_

_Let me_.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic now has wonderful art by lostthehat, which you can see [here](http://lostthecreativity.tumblr.com/post/159511177864/the-fire-sermon-by-fontainebleau22-killed-a-man).
> 
> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Fire Sermon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12048936) by [decoy_ocelot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decoy_ocelot/pseuds/decoy_ocelot)




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